I'll swallow nails and thorns to love you longer
by gustin puckerman
Summary: Annie survives, accepts and realises a few crucial things. Meanwhile, Armin's much older and she has to re-learn some things about him. ― Annie/Armin!Future Fic. Oneshot.


**i have no idea what i'm doing. take my computer and attack on titan obsession away from me - i beg of you. unbeta'd; also available on AO3 under the same title. musically inspired by Nick Jonas' Avalanche feat. Demi Lovato, and work inspired by Like Poison From a Wound by Mysecretfanmoments (AO3)**.

...

**I'll swallow nails and thorns to love you longer**.

.

She remembers him.

The last moments. The first. Every little awkward stammer of words in between. She likes him enough, she decides this the third time he smiles at her in that strange but kind way of his; the moments aren't always crystal clear and in-one, but she recognises him as it is. It's in the shape of his eyes, the slope of his nose, the small crease between his brows when he's concentrating― because he reminds her of everything she is not. It's repulsive. Annie hates it. But she can't help but to treasure it too. (You see, as disgusting as it is with Armin Arlert and whatever comes with him, she finds him ungodly beautiful. And it exists in a way that his strength is not where you can see, his belief, albeit in himself, stands just as strong as hers, his ability to love and care and act generously as he wants to and―)

She likes him.

But he doesn't need to know that. And she won't allow herself to acknowledge this more than she's supposed to.

There's a reason she's here. He's not it.

.

.

.

The moment she wakes up she knows she's done for.

Maybe it's because it's him. Or maybe because she has always realised how doomed her fate is from the start. She decides that it doesn't matter. She looks for him, _at_ him. Always do. She thinks, waits for a minute, and decides that she always will. The first time, it lasts only for a few minutes. She's still trying to grasp any strands of consciousness as she could, her lungs weaving and screaming with the suddenly large dose of oxygen intake that hadn't been provided in the crystal.

He is older.

Young, still. But older. His face, though bear resemblances to the Armin that she remembers, changes. Hair longer and mouth scarring. He must've guessed that she can't see the scar ― she sees everything sometimes. Other times, nothing at all.― and she wonders what's the story there. But she collapses and there are noises around her and all she could care to think is that he's _changed_, (she still hadn't decided if she likes it or not) and she's going to _die_ and then he's gone, and Annie stops again, gets slapped somewhere and falls.

She thinks again: she's going to die.

.

.

.

He's still the same.

Even in the way that her name curls at the edge of his tongue. He'd always make it sound more like it is. And she'd always find herself pondering over it. He is all so different from her, she used to think, which is strange and pathetic, (_he_ is quite pathetic) but Annie can't ultimately resent him for it. It's because of what sets them so far apart, that she just, she's _okay_ with him, you know? She likes it that he's not her. And she'll forever hold hope that he won't ever be. But that's before. This is now.

She decides that she likes him, despite that she so very much hates him― but he doesn't need to know that. She doesn't need to acknowledge it.

His eyes are still blue.

They hold so much more now, more than the little innocent dreams of seeing the ocean and the forest that holds no Titans ― they hold something everybody eventually recognises. Despair. Regret. Guilt. Fear. But that's not supposed to be new. It's _not_. It shakes her still, to know that he has it. Or maybe that she knows he always has it― but it's _more_ now. More despair. More regret. More guilt. More fear. It all leads to hopelessness, and if it's anything that Annie absolutely appreciates about Armin Arlet, is that he's never been the symbol of hopelessness for her.

She tells him this. Tells him that his eyes are blue.

He says, "Oh?" with his mouth gaps open and his eyes widening a bit more and staring at her like she's grown a second head. Her body's growing meticulously faster now, to fill in the curves and gaps of the years she's missed crystallising, and it prods on her hormones. And her hormones ―_she_― wants him. "I― yes, they are." He gives out small, little smiles, not entirely genuine, not completely out of amusement, and her stomach churns. "It's always been blue."

"I know." She says, because she does.

He stares at her, for a very long time. He's handsome now. Shoulders broader and definitely taller. And she could see that even when he's sitting down. Half of his yellowy sunny hair is tied back, although darker now it seems, the yellow colour, shedding the image of the pre-puberty Armin she still has playing at the back of her skull. He's smiling a little ―the present Armin― a slow smile, like he's pleasant by her or something, like he's actually _glad_ that she isn't dead (everybody wants her dead) and it's a little sad too, which kills her, chokes her, but at least it's genuine.

At least it's real.

"You know?" He might've sound teasing, if he's not Armin freaking Arlert, but he is, and Annie doesn't wholly mind.

She looks at him, wanting to grunt but doesn't, and nods. "Yes."

He smiles just a bit more.

.

.

.

She tells him that she wants to see the ocean. Sails the sea.

He doesn't know half the thing she usually says. She sits him down, explains it with as much as she knows from her father's book that she used to read from when he's not out there berating her of her postures. She tells him about a lot of things, _more_ things than she tells anybody, because it's him, it's _Armin_, because when he sneaks his hand to hold hers in the middle of her stupid, stupid rambling, she actually wants him to.

"Annie." He starts, and her name on his mouth still leaves her a bit breathless each time.

"You wanted to explore the world. Before." She doesn't know how to place her words ― she's not _smart_ like him ― and she struggles. "If we're― out. Alive. If we save humanity."

"I did." He looks down at the map spread between them, of the books that she borrows from old Mr McKenna down at the edge of town. "You remember?"

She nods at that, a little numbly, and proceeds to stare at the seas ―_his_ seas― and tries to see the Armin that would have been chirpy to go on and on about whatever it is that he and Eren would do if they actually manage to tear these walls down and not be afraid of the world outside. "You said it would be beautiful."

"It would."

"But you don't want to anymore." She stares at him dully. "Go out. Explore."

"I―" He looks surprised at that, like she imagines he would. "I never said that!"

"You don't need to." She stands up because she's angry. Because if she sees his (beautiful, beautiful) face one more time, she's going to punch it. Because it scares her, secretly, achingly, to see him and only see the Armin that's shaped into a soldier, that's shaped to survive for another day, whose head clogged with strategies and planning and ideas and _how many death count for today?_, the one that sees the brutal facts and not more ― where's the dream? Where's the silly, awkward fantasies?

He's always been good with that. Always.

The last time he does this, it's because they want to save everybody, which they still do. But there's more to it too. She'd always have it in her mind that he's chasing after something beautiful, as silly as it sounds like― travelling, laughter, adventure. No more killing. Just true freedom.

He shows his face, grasps her wrists― gently, softly. She doesn't punch him. She doesn't think she can.

"Why do you say that?" He asks softly, searching for her gaze.

She wants to snap his neck.

"You've― _changed_." She tries, disappoints by her lack of communication skills. "Grown." It's not the same anymore. She realises a second after, feeling guilty that she accuses him of so much with how the world works its cruel way on them. It's not his fault. As much as she likes it to be, not wholly his fault.

"Yes, I have." He laughs, a little, brittlely. "But not _that_ much, I don't think so."

He doesn't know, doesn't notice. Of course. She sighs, but doesn't say anything.

"Annie," he calls her again, and it's earth-shattering to hear it.

"You used to dream," she starts quietly, looking at the ground. "Now you just― _survive_." Like the lots of them. He's never been what most of them are. He's just _not_. She hates reality. She hates that she knows him ―_likes_ him― in this reality. "You're just like― the rest of them. The rest of us."

He stares.

Then gazes down, realisation dawns heavily on him she could see.

She sits somewhere, perches on the corner and looks outside the window, bringing her knees up her chest. Pathetic. Why does she even try. _God_, she's so stupid.

He sits across from her, quiet, but presence strong.

She stares.

"Annie."

"I want to see the ocean." She doesn't want that, not really. But maybe he does too, if she does. "Do whatever. I want to― I want to do it with you."

He blinks, smiles. "Okay," and accepts it.

.

.

.

She thinks about death a lot when she thinks about her father, about fleeing and betraying the growing trust she's slowly building with all of them here. She knows he thinks about death too. Almost as naturally. So, eventually, she stops thinking about it. He thinks enough for the two of them. And she starts thinking about living ― in the aftermath, the past. In general, really. She tells him this sometimes, but she always find herself sounding like an idiot afterwards.

She starts thinking more of what they should do tomorrow, or what book she'd want him to read next.

(She doesn't always listen, but she likes his voice.)

It's not much, but it's a start.

She's going to die, sooner if not later. He will too, later she hopes, not when she's still breathing hopefully. But she'll keep living as long as he's willing to stay and laugh into her hair and tells her about the stars. (She likes the star. He knows this, even back when he's still that scrawny fourteen-fifteen year old kid.)

She'll keep living if he does.

.

.

.

She cries one night, when it's too dark and everything gets too shaken up.

She doesn't sob. She doesn't even realise there's tears coming down her face until he reaches up and swipes it off her cheeks. But he's holding her the next thing she knows, just _holds_ her. No one holds her like that. Her father might once, but not like this. Not exactly. After that, he holds her some more. In comfort, in natural responses, when someone's looking, when someone's not.

She doesn't mind.

She holds him back.

.

.

.

They're falling, she thinks.

Burning.

Sinking, twisting, crashing, _ending_.

She thinks about all of the things that go absolutely horrid, that flops down in blood and flesh and nothing more but _dead_. She thinks that there's more chance they're going to die than winning this human-vs-titans fight, more chance they're going to get eaten than ever tasting the salty water that is the sea. She thinks that there's more probability they're going to get stomped than ever growing old and caresses each other's grey hair, more probability they're going down screaming rather than waking up one day with no worry whatsoever.

But she thinks about his blue eyes too, and his voice and his fingers and her name when he says it. She thinks about the Armin that she likes enough, the one that reads silently across from her and asks if she's eaten whenever Eren yaps and forces them to meet. She thinks about his little young smiles and bright eyes lighted up when Mikasa points to a bunny-looking cloud above their heads. And she thinks about the soldier Armin, the one she wakes up to, the one she learns to like again. About his calloused fingers and confident grins and eyes that wanes but heart that stays strong. She thinks about him a lot.

She thinks, that if they're ending, she's glad it's with him.

And she does.

.

.

.

She realises later that she loves him, for a long time probably.

Surprisingly, or not, he says it first. "I love you," his hands in her hair, his clothes jumbled in her (their) room.

.

.

.

And slowly, she says it back. "I love you too."

.

.

.

And, she thinks, she does.


End file.
